The defendants at the court. — VNA/VNS Photo Hồng Giang

HCM CITY — After a week of lengthy deliberation, the HCM City High People's Court on Wednesday announced the appeal verdict against two former directors of the Việt Nam Register (VR) and 142 other defendants.

They are involved in the case that occurred at the VR and related registration centres.

The People's Court sentenced Trần Kỳ Hình, VR former director, to 17 years in prison for "accepting bribes" and five years in prison for "abusing position and power while performing official duties". The total sentence he must serve is 22 years in prison – reduced by three years.

Đặng Việt Hà, also a VR former director, was sentenced to 17 years in prison, reduced by two years, for “accepting bribes”.

The panel of judges agreed to reduce the sentences for 125 out of 144 defendants, and rejected the appeal of 12 defendants.

Assessing the role of the defendants in the case, the panel of judges determined that defendant Hình, as VR director, did not perform his assigned duties and responsibilities, was lax in management and lacked supervision.

He had allowed divisions under the VR and registration centres nationwide to commit systematic violations over a long period of time, causing serious consequences.

The court also determined that defendant Hà, for personal gain, when discovering violations, still continued to direct officers of the Motor Inspection Division and registration centres to accept bribes.

The panel of judges determined that the court of first instance's trial had given the defendants the appropriate penalty and in accordance with the law.

According to the municipal People's Court, the cases occurred nationwide, systematically from the highest leadership level to local level, causing serious consequences for management in the field of inspection, affecting the State's legal policies and losing people's trust.

The defendants’ actions of accepting bribes and ignoring traffic violations led to the possibility of causing accidents, affecting drivers’ health and lives. They had been trained in professional inspection skills, knew that violations could cause serious consequences but still committed them, showing disregard for discipline and the law, so they need to be severely punished.

During their work, the defendants took advantage of their management functions and assigned tasks to directly or indirectly receive bribes. They ignored violations and issued vehicle inspection certificates.

A series of other crimes committed by the defendants were also aimed at legitimising the bribes.

The panel of judges found that most of the defendants had many mitigating circumstances, including admitting their crimes and proactively returning part or all of the illegal profits, actively cooperating with the investigation agency, along with having many achievements in work. They had families with meritorious services to the revolution and had many achievements in preventing and fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

When considering and deciding the penalty, the court of first instance had been relatively appropriate.

But, some defendants committed crimes of a lesser level but were tried by the first instance with a higher penalty, which was deemed not appropriate and the ruling was that it did not ensure fairness and differentiation of crimes.

In addition, during the appeal trial, some defendants added many new details compared to the first instance trial, so the panel of judges assessed the level of each defendant's criminal acts, the consequences, the causes and accepted sentence reduction for some defendants who had appealed. — VNS